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Farahban

This isn't about beauty, it's about justice.

No this post is not about beauty. and yet it's shocking to think of how much our lives are dictated and segregated based on physical appearance. It's shocking to think that we're that shallow as a society, and yet here we are.


I saw the clip, and I can't shake the gut wrenching pain in my stomach. I cannot imagine that in 2020, law enforcers are walking around, maiming and killing people mindlessly like they're the SS in the 1940's.


At first I was angry, I was livid, how could this be happening? how is this possible? but then my anger transitioned to fear, is this possible? How can we live in a society where the police siren is interchangeable for an ambulance's?


In my opinion, the answer is not creating more diversity through quotas. The second policeman was of asian descent. The solution is empowering minorities, while simultaneously creating a justice system that is respected again.


Eons ago, army generals, and soldiers were revered and respected. According to Foucault, knights then were distinguished based on their physical appearance, strong and forceful - brute force was glorified, and those who could induce it - glorified even further. Physical supremacy over your enemy was the only way to win. and only a few of us were genetically built for it. But as we descend into a time where technology trumps physical domination, and brute force is now only a synonym for illiteracy and vigilante justice, why is it still that the people entrusted with protecting us in 2020 have only archaism for weapons? The truth is justice systems have not transitioned with the rest of the world. Police training needs to change, and the tools they're given to enforce justice need to be innovative. How is it that the Indian police are still freely and frequently using lathis (wooden sticks) to beat people? Well, what's the alternative? That's right, there isn't one!


We're sending rockets into space with the intent of commercialising space travel and yet no one has thought of digitalising a police car, or station or the way they bring in assailants. To this date, even in a pandemic, there is a huge reliance on unnecessary physical contact/domination between the law enforcing party and the person being questioned.


The only way forward is technology, and bringing new technology to the law. It's interesting to know how much money governments redirect towards defence - the army, the navy, the air force and a hundred other secret clandestine operations, all preparations for a war at hand, but what happens when the war emerges not from outside your borders but from within it? For years, we have been seeing the same uniforms, the same cop cars, the same weapons, the same training, the same salaries! - all because it's not privatised, it's not incentivised, and then there's outcry that nothing has changed. How can we expect otherwise? when generations of law enforcers are created from the very same mould, that we as a society have long socially expunged.


Police officers all over the world risk their lives every single day for very little. They're not incentivised, they're not prepared - be it a pandemic or a protest. How can we expect these law enforcers to understand 'lives matter' when governments have made it clear that theirs don't to us? I'm not playing Devil's advocate, what happened to George Floyd was very very wrong on many levels. The ramifications of having a police force that isn't trusted are massive, and we're seeing them all over the world already. We're seeing individuals become perpetrators in the name of law, which is deadly given that individuals lack the obsequiousness and omni presence of an (unbiased) government body. Where is the line for people to stop exercising their versions of vigilante justice?

And this will only result in minorities being targeted even more than they already are. Disadvantaged by representation, minorities will be trapped between a horrendous cycle of avoiding persecution by self appointed law enforcers and a crumbling police system.


I don't have an answer and I don't know what's going to happen in the future. These are just my musings and I would love to discuss people's thoughts on updating our current law enforcement (what kind of technology would they need, how much is the current investment into local law enforcement in India or the USA) or even examples of better law enforcement systems that I'm not aware off. I'm going to leave this here, but do you think a semi-privatised system would work more efficiently in 2020 given how capitalistic we are?

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